When reality hits you..
Mehara Noushad, a second year MBBS student at Govt. Medical College Vellore, writes..
Clearing the NEET exam and getting good marks in it seems to be a life-changer in our country. After clearing my NEET exam, I too felt the same, more so because it was something my parents and grandparents had always dreamed of. And then comes the golden moment of entering a medical college, which is more like a cinematic dream of being welcomed with garlands. However, nothing like that happens and you enter the medical college without realizing that it is the place where you are going to spend your prime 5.5 years.
The first year of med-school was like a rollercoaster. Education was different and the 3 subjects would eat our heads out. It was a skill to live it, which could be mastered only with discipline and persistence. And we as newbies entered the gurukulam with a lot of excitement and fear at the same time. First-year medical students were navigating their paths through life like untethered sheep. The sad part is that often a few of the sheep lose their way and go astray.
In medical college, you find yourself often questioning yourself and the decisions you made in life. A lot of questions revolve around ‘why did I choose to become a doctor?’ Or ‘Did I even get the calling?’. Amidst these hanging in the air, there would be the terrorizing marks of the internal assessments and the physiological practical exam that demand blood. Yes, medicine demands blood! Something that I struggled with in medical school, has been the impending fear of failure. The fear of being left out be it in academics or with your peers wears you out. Med school is a place where you always have someone better than you. No matter what you do, someone else is always there in the limelight, it doesn’t matter if you were there a while ago.
Occasionally there would be faculty who would nag at you, some professor who would make you cry, or some senior who would scare the shit out of you (that’s the hardest). Most of us in med school would have had a similar experience, it can sometimes leave a scar. Failing an exam or having your best friend betray you in a biochemistry practical can happen. The catch here is to not quit. Stand up and run, even if it feels like you are trying to catch a train that has left the station. Even if you miss that train, wait a little and make sure to catch the next train. Because life does not stop for anyone! Nearly 95% of med school students live far away from home in hostels. (I made that statistical value with my class as a sample lol!). Moving on to a hostel is like nipping a flower and then planting it elsewhere, it’s a place where you have to live with people of your age. A place where you have the toughest days at the beginning, but most enjoyable days later. It is annoying to see how med school hostels also become places for cultivating drinking and smoking habits. I find it funny how they go to wards to see cases of decompensated chronic liver disease (DCLD) and yet drink. Often med students go into depression and anxiety. I have seen others as well as myself experience anxiety at some point in college.
The prefix “Dr.” to our name comes tagged with a lot of responsibilities and expectations from both the public and family. At times it's hard. And you feel there is no hope. A feeling of drowning, except that you can see everyone around you breathing. Believe me, the best advice I got from my senior brother was “to seek help”. Seek help whether it is related to academics or your own emotions. Talking to someone about how you feel is the best therapy you can give yourself. Everyone may not have time for you, but there would be someone who could make time for you! Take chances in life, so that you never have to regret them.
I would never tell anyone to chill and relax in medical school, there is an enormous amount of syllabus to learn. Forgetting those Latin words is okay, and repeated revisions may be required. There would be peers around us who would learn the same syllabus in a shorter span of time than you. Accept the fact that everybody has different abilities, and put in your efforts accordingly. I too hope to continue loving my journey in med school and navigate my path to becoming a better human. Here, you find not just love, adventure, and freedom, more than anything, you find yourself!
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